Winter is Early

Evinrude 250 HO G2

 Winter has definitely arrived here in Dayton, and around much of the upper Midwest.  Along with winter comes the mad scramble to get things done, or at least as much as one can.  As I grow older it is unclear as to if I am getting wiser or simply lazier!  Upon returning from our delayed Leech Lake Opener it was decided that October 13 would be a good day to get the boat winterized, seeing it was forecasted to get colder in the next week, and there was time, the water was still hooked up, yeah one could possibly go fishing one more time but......  I have mentioned this before regarding my Evinrude 250 HO G2 outboard, unfortunately BRP has decided to quit producing them.   Being a fishing forum geek, you'd swear anyone owning a recent G2 Evinrude is going straight to hell, yet my dealer, Frankie's does a good job with Joe being a certified mechanic, heck the engine may very well out last me so what's the issue?  Anyway this outboard has a great feature for winterizing it as it's been discussed before.  It is a oil injected 2 stroke, V6.  In the digital display control data center it has a function called "Winterize".  Sometimes I have done this at the boat landing as I load it up one last time, however lately it's done at the pole shed, simply hook up the water to the engine, start and let it warm up then hit the winterize button.  The engine goes into a high idle, I suspect until it hits a certain temperature then it starts to fog itself.  From a virtual no smoke in the exhaust to a heavy blue oil smoke it runs for about 15 more seconds before shutting itself off.  The last check is the lower unit grease which is a plastic reservoir under the hood, the big boy is all set for the winter.  The 9.8 hp kicker is a 4 stroke and when it was in to get the livewell valve fixed they changed the oil and the lower unit grease.  Dumping in some gas treatment as this engine is carbureted,  the kicker was started and run for about 15 minutes.  The last act of winterizing was to pull off the gas line and let the engine run out of gas.  With that out of the way she is ready for a long winter's sleep.  The boat needs to be cleaned as it is pretty dirty from the October Team Walleye Opener.  More on that later as there is another boat in the shed that needs some attention as well! 

7.8 inches of snow overnight

All of this was with amazing foresight as last week we had a record snowfall for this early in October.  Usually Tim Kuntz would help me blow my sprinkler system out before it snows and freezes.  Of course Tim passed away in April yet it was amazing the people who stepped up and offered their services.  Bruce has a big compressor and he offered to let me use it, my neighbor Rich had an extra compressor as backup and offered it.  As well Limo Joe Hanson has a big compressor to run his sand blasting equipment, he went and did Connie's (Tim's wife) system before coming over to my shed and hook up.  It was just in the nick of time as you can see by my truck, 7.8 inches fell last week.  Of course with the snow comes the cold and the big scramble to take care of the rest of things needed to be done.  The list is crazy because the leaves didn't get picked up, with a lot still on the trees as of today.  Potatoes are still in the ground, garden supports need to be removed.  Mover deck removed and the snow blower attachment and cab attached.  Oil changed on the 25 hp river boat.  In normal years one usually has till the first of November to get these things taken care of.  Oh well, it is what it is!  Not only that but the Salem needs some maintenance.  The last trip to Lake of the Woods, the wheel stayed up.  Luckily Ben had a propane torch and with some heat it went down.  Well of course waiting until the last minute, the right side came off with a little convincing needed however the left is being really stubborn.  Bruce has offered to help me and I will be taking him up on the offer soon, or at least before Thanksgiving.  It's really a 2 man job, figuring the best way to remove the wheel pivot assembly, not an easy job.  The weather forecast for the end of the week calls for more normal temperatures, say in the lower 50's, maybe some things will get done!!  Deer hunting is coming soon and with the snow on the ground basically through most of Minnesota, ice fishing is just around the corner!
 

Leech Lake Opener, Team Walleye

Andy with a Nice Walleye

Because of concerns about the Covid virus, Team walleye decided to move it's 47th annual Minnesota Fishing Opener from the traditional weekend of the second Saturday in May to October 9th at Brindley's Resort on Leech Lake.  It was absolutely beautiful with the surrounding green pines and the yellow aspen trees complimented with the chestnut to red leaves of the oak trees, it was very nice.  Not unlike spring the walleyes tend to return to the shallower haunts that they are in May, however the wind plays a very important role in determining where the walleyes are.  Also the water temperatures are about what they are in a normal May, 50 - 55 degrees F.  Also not unlike the May opener, minnows and trolling crankbaits were the strategy.  Our first issue was to find minnows.  In May spot tail shiners are the preferred minnow species and we will use some fathead minnows, however the fall is not the season for spot tails so we were forced to use golden shiners instead.  These are available as they are grown in commercial minnow ponds and serve the winter market for larger minnows.  As well we were able to get some medium sucker minnows which turned out to work very well.  Having done well on Redtail chubs this summer and fall I decided to get a gallon and split it with my brother Steve.  These minnows are supposed to be work very well but they are expensive, much more than the suckers so we were the only 2 boats using them as we purchased them separately.  Everyone arrived at the resort on Friday, October 9th by 5:00.  Some had come earlier to scout the popular spots and did okay, a great sign.  The weather was supposed to be nice on Saturday with little wind, Sunday was ahead of a cold front and had very strong southerly winds and rough, turning to rain that evening lasting through Monday, with northwesterly winds on Monday, we were hoping that cold front would not effect anything.  It turns out that the nicest day, Saturday was my worst day of catching.  My strategy was to find the mid depth humps off Submarine Island and pull Lindy Rigs or jigs in 14 -16 feet of water.  Heck, we never even marked a fish.  Although disappointing we headed back towards Pine Point to drift across the area which is about 10 feet.  There my friend Jay Johnson managed to get 5 fish bringing our total to 7 walleyes which included zero for me! Back at the cabin the guys were giving me a hard time about possibly winning the DCS (Didn't Catch Sh!t) award, well the tourney was still young.  As stated, Sunday the wind took an abrupt shift 180 degrees and blew with vengeance out of the northwest.  Because the other  6 boats seem to catch something out between Pine Point and Grand Vu Flats we decided to try there.  It was much better with my friend Andy Achman nailing this nice 21 inch walleye.  The walleyes were very good sized and matched up with the Leech Lake limit of 4 under 20 inches or 3 under 20 and 1 over 20.  There were a lot of fish in that 20 - 23 inch range and we definitely kept one apiece. That evening I had Ben and Mason in the boat and we spent a lot of time trolling the east side Ottertail Point, usually a very good spot.  We must have made 4 trolling runs and nothing to show for it.  The moon was not out resulting in the night being very dark.  This time of year 8PM is completely dark and it became difficult to see the shoreline.  Relying on the GPS tracks works good but the kicker motor doesn't respond that quickly making it somewhat challenging.

24 inch Walleye

When fishing Sunday I happened to pull in beautiful fish measuring 24 inches.  We set our own limit at 21 inches as the biggest we would keep to that went back into the lake.  The north wind was cold for sure but the bite was not deterred. All of our 7 boats stayed in the general area and did pretty well.  I ended up with 3 walleyes, at least I was out of the basement!  Because the bite was good on Pine Point we decided to try it again after dinner.  We got a few more but admittedly the bite wasn't very good after 7:00 PM.  We switch around boats and Monday I enjoyed the company of Mike Kimpel and  James.  Quite honestly my boat wasn't on fire so we decided to try the shallows for perch as Leech Lake has a nice perch population. After drifting Pine for a few hours we headed for the Narrows, an area between the main lake, Walker Bay, and Steamboat bay.  Averaging around 4 to 5 feet deep, there are a lot of isolated reed beads and the perch congregate in those areas.  We have seen some 12 inches caught back at the resort so we figured we'd try it.   Because all of the buoys were already removed it was a challenge to find a spot to start.  Picking a reed bed we drifted into it using the Motorguide to anchor us at the edge.  There were perch but the average was only about 5 inches.  We caught a ton of them but only kept 4 in that 9 inch range.  After an hour or so and about 100 small perch we decided to finish the afternoon off back at Pine Point.  At 2 we decided to hang it up as it was important to eat early so we could get out before dark!  Deciding to drive to shop at Reeds, arriving at Walker it was closed.  The guys that had been there on Sunday made no mention of the big sign on the door.....damn!!

Gill Net set on OtterTail Point

Monday night proved to be the most interesting for me.  With Mike and James still with me they both agreed that experimenting might be worth while.  The northwest wind was blowing into Duck Point all day and it seemed a natural for walleyes to be in that area.  Well they weren't.  I really wanted to try trolling again and my guests agreed to try it, maybe 30 minutes earlier in the day.  We headed east to Ottertail Point again as I really marked fish in 12 feet there earlier and maybe they would head to the shoreline to feed.  We started trolling when Mike noticed a laundry detergent bottle floating on the surface.  Well maybe some one was marking something.  Trolling well outside the makeshift buoy my shad rap got hung up.  Getting just above where the bait was stuck, the line finally snapped.  Deciding to try a Rattlin Rouge we kept goin up the shore line when we passed a bleach bottle floating.  This time our normal route took us to the shore side of the buoy and we passed just fine.  Turning around  and staying to the outside there was a third buoy and sure enough, I lost my bait again.  Now we were thinking someone might have secured a rope to the bottom to collect trolling lures but side scan showed nothing.  This time a cheap Sassy Shad, $1.49 went on the end of the line.  Sure enough it also got snagged and lost.  All but frustrated as I have made at least 50 trolling runs along this course and never lost a lure.  Before leaving we went up to one of the jugs and pulled it up, it was making sense now.  Mike found a gill net attached to the buoy line with a 15 pound barbell weight attached to the bottom.  As we pulled more up, there were 4 walleyes caught in the net.  Not sure if anyone was watching us we freed a couple of the walleyes and dropped the mess back down.  I have never experienced that on Leech before yet we had never fished the fall before.  Greg at Brindley's acknowledge that the Indians can and do net the lake in the fall however he was surprise they had gone that far.  As stated we were tempted to retrieve our lost lures but decided that $15 wasn't worth the potential hassle.  At least the mystery was solved!  We cabin ended up being able to keep 84 walleyes, 4 each for 21 guys.  They were the nicest sized walleyes we had caught in as long as I remember.  The total was 170 walleyes caught, probably not our best year however the overall size was excellent. The fishing was good enough to want to go back there in the fall and we'll see if next year we can get a group of guys to go!  As always thanks to Mark Mayerich and his dedication to our group.

Preparing For Our Delayed Opener

 

Bush King Acorn Squash

The last few weeks have been filled with preparing everything for our delayed fishing opener.  Usually held on the second week of May, due to the covid situation we were able to reschedule our big cabin at Brindley's Harbor to the weekend starting October 9th till the 13th.  One of my big things was to try and get my livewell valve working as it is supposed to.  When we went up to Leech on the traditional Minnesota Fishing Opener, it didn't take long to discover that my livewell valve had frozen and cracked. 
This is a problem that was the first time in almost 30 years I have seen one crack.  Maybe it happened when they replaced the axle last December, it was inside for a while and it might have melted some water along with the need to jack the trailer up, but no difference, it was cracked.  Having it repaired a couple of times, the livewell simply did not seal right when switched to recirculate.  This mode allows one to recirculate the water inside the livewell without draining it, great for moving from spot to spot with walleyes in the livewell.  Well, the valve continued to leak even after a few ideas were tried.  This time Frankie's put a new control cable in and it works like new now.  I have my suspicions but will leave it at that!  It is also harvest time in the garden as we finally had a killing frost a couple of nights ago.  A bumper crop of raspberries have had me look at the method of freezing that works well on my sweet corn.  Pick them and put on a tray to freeze.  Once frozen vacuum pack them, they should be sealed and fresh for the coming winter. Did some rhubarb this spring, it will be interesting to see how these turn out.  If it's anything like the sweet corn, stuff I did over a year ago still tastes a fresh as the day it was picked.  In fact our neighbor Lynn Brasel introduced us to a new way to prepare.  Take the corn and heat it in a pan, add about a couple tablespoons of butter then a good portion of cream cheese.  Simply awesome! The other surprise was the acorn squash that was planted called Bush King.  Figuring it would be somewhat manageable I planted 3 hills of it, maybe 4 seeds per hill.  They say acorn squash is ready when the undersides turn from yellow to orange.  The plants were about dead anyway so the harvest began.  When through there were over 60 squash.  Not overly large but a single squash is perfect for 2 people.  Taking one and cutting it in half, scraped the seeds out and replaced it with butter and Brandon's Raspberry Infused Bourbon Maple Syrup, wrapped in foil and cooked on the grill.  Simply amazing!  Okay, this isn't Cooking with Dave but these recipes are too good not to share.  The fishing stories should come next week!!

Wild Marsh Sporting Clay Course

On September 18th, delayed a week again from this covid stuff, we had the Kramer Open.  This is a sporting clays event that Dave Kramer, a friend and one time customer, does to help raise money for a friend of his that passed away at an early age leaving his wife and children to themselves.  I really got started through my friend Tom Emmons, who tragically died in 2012 ( a bad year as I lost a few friends by the time it ended).  Dave still raises money for the children of his friend and I continue to try and make it as a remembrance of my friend Tom.  Also it is a lot of fun as years ago we had a team that would shoot 100 rounds every month for 5 months.  My old neighbor, Roger Weber got me into trap shooting in the mid 80's.  Then I used my old Browning A5 (squareback)   shotgun and did horrible, averaging about 16 clays in 25.  There is something about that gun which just didn't feel right.  It was acquired back in the mid 70's when I traded my old snowmobile for it and a 22 rifle.  The Browning is an original Belgium model with a blonde stock, it's probably worth more now than I paid for the snowmobile.  Still wanting to shoot better and blaming the gun....the obvious solution was to get a different gun.  One day we were in Galyan's store in Minnetonka and they had a great gun selection.  A lot of guys shoot over/under's so I ended up buying a Browning Citori 12 ga, 26 inch barrels, figuring it would be a good upland game gun for grouse and pheasants.  Little did I know that longer barrels 30 inches or so were better for shooting clays.  Never the less this gun did it's job and immediately saw a 5 bird improvement over the A5.  When I started sporting clays that's a whole new experience as the stations are setup to mimic real situations, even throwing the targets so they roll on the ground like a rabbit!  My 26 inch Citori was nice but again I was stuck at around 30/50 on each course, 60/100 for the round.  In the meantime at work a guy who worked there dealt in guns.  It was fun to talk with him and we soon decided that a longer barrel would help me.  A few years later he let me know he could get Browning Citori 525, a gun made specifically for shooting clays, it had a 30 inch barrel, hand removeable chokes that extended another inch, changeable triggers, in a nice case.  He had a guy that was ordering some and  wanted to know if I was interested, as they were $1000 less than what they were selling in the gun shops.  Of course!!! Upon receiving the new over/under my scores jumped up another 8 per 100 and ended my average around 76/100.  It was a big improvement and much more enjoyable to shoot with.  In recent years I only average about 1 event per year, however this year I got 2 rounds in, one as a substitute for a guy in my neighbors league, and the Kramer.  68 was my first shoot and 78 was my score at the Kramer.  We did the Red and Blue courses this year.  It is sort of like golf, 8 stations (Holes) for each course, 6 clays on 7 and 8 on one.  Again because of covid I was on a team who I have never shot with, but it was fun as we rented a golf cart to make our way around the course. Although I did not place with the guys we shot with, I did wind the most in a row, 23 which is not bad seeing's how they were the first 23 clays I shot, my teammates must have thought I was a ringer, but soon my real colors started to show!  Oh well it was fun and a good day to look back at all the good times we had shooting.

Coming back from Frankie's last Thursday there was a fishing garage sale that just had to be visited.  I walked out of there with a couple of deep diving X Raps and a nice smaller Abu Garcia Black Max casting reel.  Making it to Cabela's I got the last 6'6" Berkley Lightning Rod casting rod they had.  Just a side note, these Berkley Lightning rods are quite incredible.  At $35 each you'd never believe that they are so cheap as they feel like a $100 Fenwick.  Anyway after mounting the Black Max reel and filling it with 15# P-Line, it will be a gift for my nephew, Kevin Anderson, as he is flying in from Portland to fish with us this weekend.  I give him crap as he lives right at the tip of the Willamette Valley in Oregon, one of the best places in the world for Pinot Noir wines.  I make him bring me a unique bottle every time he comes home, which he does and the wines have been excellent.  Because trolling shad raps will be the hot ticket this weekend for walleyes, I figured he needed a good trolling rod which this combination will do just perfectly.  Depending on the quality of the Pinot Noir he brings this time, I picked up a couple of great lures for him that maybe he could get as well!!